Politics | This state-imposed persecution of the UK’s international students must end

In a letter published today in Ceasefire, more than a hundred UK academics, activists, and students write in to raise the alarm over Home Office policies towards non-EU colleagues and students, and warn that such policies are not only discriminatory but are causing irreparable damage to British higher education.

A protester holds a placard outside the Home Office in central London following the government’s decision to strip London Metropolitan University of its right to sponsor visas for overseas students. (Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images)

Non-EU academic staff, especially those who have completed their PhD research in the UK, are finding themselves at the mercy of an exploitative neoliberal higher education system that is bolstered by the Home Office’s punitive immigration policies, making it incredibly difficult to gain a work visa despite being offered employment. As indicated in a Times Higher Education piece in January 2014, universities are being discouraged from hiring non-EU academics, despite many of them being top scholars in their field. In other instances, non-EU scholars are increasingly being denied visas to attend academic conferences and to work on collaborative projects with their British counterparts

We do not believe that preventing non-EU scholars from entering the UK to take part in the production of knowledge and research helps our universities to maintain their world class position.

However, the situation for non-EU international students who are already here is also appalling. While we saw British students decry the heavy-handed police involvement on campuses last year as part of the #CopsOffCampus initiative and, in particular, the horrendous treatment suffered by Defend Education Birmingham protesters on the University of Birmingham campus, little is known about police surveillance inflicted on non-EU students from a selection of countries, who are forced to register with the police by their visa requirements. In some universities, most notably at Ulster University and Sunderland University, non-EU international students are subjected to biometric fingerprinting and further humiliating surveillance. We fail to understand how treating non-EU international students like criminals constitutes a welcoming and hospitable environment.

Adding insult to injury, academics are being told they are obliged to inform the Home Office if they have any suspicions that a student is breaching the conditions of his or her leave to remain in the UK, or if the student is engaging in ‘suspicious behaviour.’ The discriminatory treatment of non-EU international students doesn’t stop there. Despite non-EU international students paying exorbitant tuition fees -from £14,000 to over £20,000- that in turn helps fund the studies of British students; from May 2015, students and workers from outside the EU will have to pay a ‘NHS surcharge’ of up to £200 per year before they are given a visa.

And what happens to non-EU international students who encounter substandard education and services at their universities? Instead of the educational provider being penalised for their failure to provide for the needs of their students, it is the students who have faced the wrath of UKBA, as witnessed by students at London Metropolitan University in 2012 and now at Glyndwr University, who were forced to find another educational provider within 60 days or face deportation. Why should non-EU international students be punished in such a draconian manner for the failings of their universities?

‘We have been informed of some students being called for a “meeting” with the Home Office and then being detained to be deported. Even proven British criminals have substantially more rights to challenge a case against them than international students. Even the minimum legal concept of ‘innocent before proven guilty’ does not apply to international students.’

The state- and media-imposed xenophobia directed at non-EU international students has now led to increased racist verbal and physical attacks, and even outright murder, as we witnessed this summer in Essex in the case of a Saudi international PhD student at Essex University, Nahid Almanea. Initiatives such as the I’m Not Welcome Campaign have documented many incidents of both racial and xenophobic attacks on and off campus against non-EU international students, especially those who are people of colour. The campaign also underscores the failure of universities, the Home Office, and the student movement to understand the particular needs of non-EU international students and academic staff.

The xenophobic and racist rhetoric faced daily by non-EU international students is exemplified by the comments of Nigel Carrington, Vice Chancellor of the University of Arts London (UAL), who said in August 2014 to The Independent that while non-EU international students are needed in order to prevent an increase in tuition fees for British students, they ‘undermine our economy’ because they take away the skills honed in the UK and use them to ‘go home and build their creative industries to compete against us.’ Mr. Carrington fails to question why non-EU international students and academic staff leave the UK and let their skills flourish elsewhere. He would do well to reflect on how fanning the flames of xenophobia in this way will affect the already hostile environment against migrants where racial attacks are frequent thanks to Theresa May’s policies and the notorious ‘go home’ vans.

Further, Mr. Carrington appears to be unaware that it is now impossible for non-EU international students to remain legally in the UK after they finish their courses if they do not have a job offer, because in 2012 the government phased out the post-study work visa (which allowed non-EU international students the right to seek work for 2 years in the UK), replacing it with a graduate entrepreneur visa, requiring ‘genuine and credible’ business ideas. Mr. Carrington, like many other university vice-chancellors, clearly regards non-EU international students as cash cows who are essential if they themselves are to retain their inflated six figure salaries and luxury lifestyles. It is they who are running British higher education to the ground, not non-EU international students and academic staff.

Even more shameful is the treatment of those non-EU academics and students who dare to speak out against the rampant neoliberalism within higher education and the way universities use their precarious immigration status to force them out of the country in order to silence their voices and activism. Ongoing cases and campaigns like that of Sanaz Raji (Justice4Sanaz campaign) and past threats directed at Dr. Casey Brienza by her employer regarding her immigration status are only two examples of a widespread abuses in this context. The fact that non-EU academics and students cannot challenge a university for continually failing to meet its own standards speaks volumes about the nature of the once highly regarded British higher education system.

We call for an end to state-imposed xenophobia and racism against non-EU international students and an end to draconian restrictions placed upon them. We call for a fairer system that does not penalise non-EU academics and students or seek to limit their contributions. Without these changes British higher education will inevitably become more insular and mediocre and unable to achieve and maintain world-class standards.

Finally, we call on other UK academics to speak out and take a lead as professionals and intellectuals against turning the country’s higher education institutions into a racist money making endeavour, destroying the spirit and integrity of the very idea of knowledge and learning.

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